Socialist Realism

Absolutely lost my fucking mind when Trisha Low went from a paragraph about One Direction into a paragraph about Turkish political prisoners/death-fasters back into a paragraph about One Direction.......more

gotta go scream for the rest of my life!!! struggling in futility is really fundamental to the human condition in a way that makes me sick :-) she presents truly so much in 160 pgs that's alternately horrible and wonderful to think about. and in thee face of the gnawing anxiety of living in end-time......more

My Review for the Chicago Review of Books: [URL not allowed] ALSO: "It's no wonder, as Wendy Brown points out, that suffering has always been the barometer of authenticity, and authenticity has in turn become proof of identity. Your bleeding wound is the evidence that allows you......more

Mid-read yesterday I realized why personal essays are so hit or miss for me — they're innately "me" and "them" with very little room in the middle for complexity. To write so completely in your voice, from your perspective with your opinions kind of erases the complexities of everyone else around yo......more

Reviewed for Bookforum 9/2019 -- here's an excerpt: Where The Compleat Purge relished in performing the delicious narcissism of the morbidly melodramatic teen girl, Low’s new book Socialist Realism is decidedly Adult. More restrained, less indulgent, and properly, legibly, nonfiction, Socialist Real......more